


The Rose Hollow Directory of Supernatural Creatures

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Dark Comedy, Demons, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween, M/M, Multi, Shapeshifting, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The residents of Rose Hollow are pretty varied. There's a little bit of everyone there, like a coven of (three) witches that meet in the back room of a library, a zombie who has a thing for a funeral director, a ghost with buoyancy problems, two shapeshifting familiars, a succubus who is terrible at her job, a demon that's tired of his coworker's meddling, a werewolf librarian, and Eren, the vampiric corner store night shift worker who accidentally got recruited as a relationship counselor. All he wants to do is find out what's wrong with the fajita machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marco

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who wanted to do an extremely dorky Halloween fic? Yep.
> 
> So, this'll be a few chapters and I aim to get the whole fic finished before Halloween. Just something to pass the time and fill my dorky cute quota for the month. Hope you all enjoy!

Eren hated working the night shift. He couldn’t decide what part of it was worse; the burning fluorescent lights that made everything look diluted, the late night brand of customers, or that the fajita machine always managed to smell terrible around two in the morning. It’s not like he had a choice in what shift to work, even though he had been asked multiple times if he wanted to change it. If he had been in any other situation, not only would he have taken it, but he probably also would have changed jobs completely. Working in a corner store was the farthest thing from ideal.  
  
So that begged the question; what was the problem? Kind of any number of things, really. Burning to a crisp in the sunlight, maybe? People running and screaming when they saw that his skin was closer to the shade of paper? At least the smell of garlic didn’t bother him anymore, since Eren was ninety-nine percent sure that what ever the store used as garlic wasn’t real. Then again, none of the ingredients seemed natural.  
  
The fluorescent lighting thing took care of the coloration he had, since everything looked nasty pale under the lights. He didn’t look much different from his coworkers, and even if he had days where he looked a little more pallid than normal, his sister’s concealer worked wonders.  
  
So, second question: what was a vampire doing working in a corner store? Answer to that: he literally had no choice.  
  
Here was the basic layout of the town of Rose Hollow. Across the street from the corner store was a competitive gas station, which always advertised _their_ slushies as twenty-five cents less. On their opposing corner was a funeral parlor, which was next door neighbors with Sunny Side Up Day Care. The St. Maria’s Church (and subsequent cemetery) was the sort of town center, which constituted that, a tiny shack they called their post office, and the library, which was really more of two bookshelves surrounded by plywood walls. The only real restaurant in town was a diner which hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. The closest thing to a medical office they had was a combination pharmacy and doctor’s office. They had the only high school in a forty mile radius, however, which was probably their biggest draw. Besides that, there was just a row of stores ranging from cutesy-kitsch to disturbing and ramshackle. The best form of entertainment the town collectively had (other than two bars) was a park with a wooden stage on the verge of falling apart and a baseball diamond that was used maybe once a year.  
  
In short, Eren’s best bet was a corner store, since other than the diner and the gas station, nothing else had a night shift.  
  
Third question: what was a vampire doing in a town like Rose Hollow? Answer: Rose Hollow was kind of full of people like him.  
  
Rose Hollow really could have had a directory of supernatural creatures. The funny part was that all of the humans legitimately had _no_ idea that they existed. Mikasa, Eren’s sister, worked part-time at the pharmacy, filling orders and taking calls (all two of them that she got on any given day). What no one knew was that she was a fairly accomplished witch. In her free time, she had a tendency to fill prescriptions with concoctions she made, which worked just as well or better than the original. And Armin, their best friend and roommate, worked as the town’s co-librarian. He just so happened to be a werewolf, which was hardly a distraction for him. It just made it a little harder to turn pages. And the three of them were just three out of many. There were zombies, shapeshifters, ghosts, and one rather memorable lizard person.  
  
Still, it didn’t exactly make Eren’s job better. The fajita machine smell was still bad, and no matter how much powder Mikasa mixed for him to put in the machine, it didn’t make it any better. He settled with entertaining the idea that the thing was cursed. The washed out color from the lights made him long for sunlight and vivid colors. The customers were still weird, and most of them were full on human.  
  
\---  
  
“So, I told the guy, ‘I don’t care _how_ much you want for this tractor! It’s a rip-off!’ You should’ve seen the look on his face!”  
  
The guy in front of him ripped into a fit of laughter, which for being at 3 A.M., was gratingly annoying. Eren forced a smile as he bagged up three cans of tuna and a packet of beef jerky. He was only half-listening anyway, since he was a little more invested in the worrying sound the beer cooler was making. He handed the bag over and wished the tractor guy a good night, to which the man chortled ( _chortling_ , what?) and made some offhand comment about how the only way it would be good is if he had a strong drink. Fortunately, he left, and Eren was left alone with the fajita machine and a hissing beer cooler.  
  
Before he made a move to go fix it, he felt _it_. _It_ was the single most annoying feeling ever, being the vampiric equivalent of hunger. From what he remembered, he guessed it could be equated to someone’s stomach rumbling. It was just weirder. Instead of being in his stomach, it felt like it was coming from higher up, somewhere between his lungs, or maybe under his heart. It was always faint at first, before crescendoing into a full scale annoyance.  
  
He had read enough vampire novels to be fully repulsed by the idea of some sort of feral, seductive hunger (what seduction and feralness had to do with each other was beyond him). There was always some vampire made crazed by hunger, stalking in the darkness for a smell of someone delicious, and then doing some kind of hypnotic business to a pretty young passerby. Then they would drink and it would be like an acid trip sequence and... Yeah, no. It was really just like an annoying tug in his chest. Nothing smelled particularly good, and he wasn’t exactly going to hop outside to find the next semi-attractive person to chomp on. First of all, that was rude. Second, he was on the clock.  
  
He sighed and reached under the counter for his coffee cup. It was standard brushed metal and black plastic mug, and anyone would have probably guessed he was just a night shift worker with a caffeine addiction. With a grimace, he sipped at it, giving a minute shiver as he swallowed.  
  
“Gross,” he mumbled, setting the mug aside. Cold blood was disgusting. He really should have invested in a Thermos. Either that, or get after Mikasa on making artificial blood that tasted better. Vampirism wasn’t all that appealing in reality.  
  
He took another quick swig (resisting the urge to pinch his nose shut) before starting towards the beer cooler. However, the automatic doors slid open before he could take another step.  
  
The person groaned, taking slow, uneven steps into the store. Their hands grasped out in front of them, reaching for nothing at all. Eren was on edge for all of one second until they stepped into the light.  
  
“Hey, Marco,” Eren greeted pleasantly, stepping back behind the counter.  
  
Marco let out another groan, which slid seamlessly into a yawn. Once he got to the counter, he put his hands at his sides, his right hand going into his jacket pocket. He was looking a little worse for the wear at that moment, his hair unkempt, one eyelid drooping a little, half of his mouth a flat line while the other side was set in a smile.  
  
“Hey,” he greeted back. “Okay, so, quick question of opinion. Which do you think would work better on skin? Krazy Glue or Gorilla Glue?”  
  
Eren blinked, glanced down at his mug of blood like there might have been something else in it, and then looked back up at Marco. “‘Scuse me?”  
  
“Uh...” Marco trailed off, reaching into his pocket before setting something on the counter.  
  
Eren squinted before wrinkling his nose and frowning. “Was it necessary to put your finger up here? You could have just showed me.”  
  
“Sorry,” Marco replied sheepishly, taking the finger off the counter and examining it. “Had a little incident at the cemetery today. Like, the edge of the mausoleum door’s getting a little sharp and... yeah, kind of came off. The pharmacy isn’t open for a few more hours, so I can’t get stitching stuff yet.”  
  
“Got it. No need to elaborate,” Eren said flatly. He frowned and looked around the store. “I guess... Gorilla Glue’s pretty good. I’ve never had a problem with it and I’m sure it’ll hold you together until you can get to the pharmacy. And hey, if you get the chance, maybe talk to Mikasa about it. She could probably set you up with some kind of... I dunno, magic paste? Might be useful.”  
  
Marco nodded and smiled thoughtfully, or really _half_ smiled. It wasn’t easy when only one section of his face was working. Being undead had that effect. “Yeah, good idea. Thanks.”  
  
Eren watched as Marco wandered through the store, pausing once in awhile to smack at his right leg which had a tendency to freeze up on occasion. Finally, he circled back around to the counter with a tube of Gorilla Glue in hand. While Eren rang it up, Marco glanced over at the community bulletin board above the newspaper display.  
  
“So, are you going to the Halloween event?” he asked, sounding pretty cheery for a zombie.  
  
With a sigh, Eren shrugged. “Not sure. Do you want a bag for this?”  
  
Marco shook his head and kept looking at the board. “Sounds fun, I think.”  
  
Eren propped his elbow up on the counter and rested his chin on his hand. “Not as fun without a date, though.”  
  
If Marco had had any blood in his head, he probably would have blushed. He suddenly turned his face toward the floor (was his ear sliding off a little?) and coughed unnecessarily. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, although he sounded very reluctant.  
  
Eren had never really been called ‘perceptive’ before, but it was hard to ignore when someone was being extremely obvious. He fought back a grin. “You thinking about asking someone?”  
  
Marco’s head shot up (with a dangerous cracking sound from somewhere in his neck) and his one working eye went wide. “I, uh... No! No, not anyone in particular! Just, kind of a fun thought, right?”  
  
Eren _did_ grin. “Okay,” he said easily.  
  
There was a long, somewhat uncomfortable silence permeated only by the hissing beer cooler and Eren taking a sip of blood from his mug. Finally, Marco gave up. He sighed (again, unnecessarily) and looked at Eren with the best defeated kicked-puppy look a zombie could possibly muster. “Do you think... Jean would say yes if I asked?”  
  
Just as Eren had figured. Jean Kirschstein was one of two funeral directors in the entire town, and darted between the funeral parlor and the town cemetery often. He was one of the few humans who knew about the existence of paranormal creatures, but kept quiet about it. Not for any particular reason, other than, in his words, “ _If people knew about Marco, I feel like they’d get after me for being the worst funeral director ever. One of my clients broke out._ ”  
  
However, it was pretty common knowledge to most of said paranormal creatures that Jean and Marco were pretty good friends. It was normal to see Jean dressed in a standard black suit, darting across the street to the cemetery once he was done with work. There was also rumor that Jean had been nice enough to run an extension cord to the mausoleum Marco was supposed to be buried in, presumably in order to hook up a TV or give him somewhere to charge his phone. Neither of them confirmed or denied it.  
  
The _other_ rumor, or not so much a rumor as it was a betting pool at that point, was when one of the two of them would ask the other out. Eren was on the ‘Marco’s going to ask first’ side, while Mikasa and Armin were rooting for Jean. Right now, Eren was _very_ confident of his bet.  
  
“I think he would,” he answered. “He wouldn’t do half the stuff he does for you if he didn’t like you.”  
  
Marco frowned and fidgeted with his disconnected finger. “Yeah but... I’m a dead guy.”  
  
“And so am I, kinda. But here we both are. Besides, dead guys are in his line of work.”  
  
“I guess...” Marco trailed off, still fidgeting.  
  
“What’s the whole adage about mixing business with pleasure?”  
  
Again, if there was any blood in Marco’s head, he definitely would have blushed. “Eren!”  
  
“Just saying,” Eren replied with a shrug.  
  
“I... I’ll _try_ ,” Marco said, more to himself than Eren. “But, what if he says no? What if he’s freaked out?”  
  
Eren narrowed his eyes. “He hangs out with you all the time. If he was going to ever be freaked out, it would have been a long time before now.”  
  
Marco frowned down at his finger for awhile before he slowly nodded. “I guess you’re right. Not a whole lot of harm in it now.”  
  
“Yep. That’s the spirit!”  
  
“I’ll just... Next time I see him, I’ll ask,” Marco said, sounding more confident. “I’ll just say something simple, nothing too big. Just a, ‘Hey, do you have anyone to go with? I’m all for it!’ That kind of thing. Easy. Totally easy.”  
  
“Might wanna put your finger back on before you ask, though,” Eren pointed out, nodding to the finger which Marco was now rolling between his palms like a pencil.  
  
“Oh.” Marco took the glue off the counter and looked between it and the finger. Then, he looked up at Eren with a sheepish expression. “Uh, can you help me with this?”  
  
Eren couldn’t really name any other time he had to help a friend reattach a finger with superglue, so he chalked it up to another life experience. It was pretty gross, but worth it for Marco’s relieved grin. “Okay, I’ll tell you how it goes! Thanks, Eren!” he said as he stepped back out the door.  
  
Eren waved him out before taking another drink out of his mug. Deep down, he couldn’t help but feel like it wouldn’t be the last time he had to help someone out like that. Until then, he had a beer cooler to fix.


	2. Annie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the awesome feedback! You're all making me really excited to write this thing. :D
> 
> As for this chapter, it's short, but it was hella fun for me to write. I love Annie, and I love Mikasa, and I really love Annie and Mikasa together. Eren didn't get to be much of a relationship counselor in this one, but Annie doesn't really need one. ;D

Eren was in the middle of an impromptu potato chip restock when Annie came in. What led to the potato chip restock was already pretty strange, but Annie Leonhart coming in to the corner store at two in the morning was stranger.  
  
A quick rewind for convenience:  
  
At half past midnight, Eren was just saying goodbye to what he assumed was the last decent customer of the night. Typically, after that time, things just kind of spiraled down to people stumbling in off the street, inebriated or not. Sometimes a ghost would wander in, hover in place for a few moments, and then slowly drift out. None of that happened.  
  
As Eren was reassembling the beef jerky display on his counter, a group of teenagers came in like a collective giggling mass of rebellion. Eren counted seven in all, all huddled together. A few of them looked at him, but mostly they went right to shuffling from aisle to aisle, whispering and laughing, poking things, moving things around (it wasn’t like Eren _couldn’t_ see it, sheesh), glancing over to him like they were trying to get his sullen approval. He just watched them with a sigh of aggravation, waiting for them to pass.  
  
Like a swarm of locusts, they finally found the potato chip display. Eren heard one of the girls suddenly exclaim, “Omi _gooodddd_ , it’s those baked cheddar ones! I love those!” They was a brief series of shrieks of plastic chip bags being exchanged before they swarmed the slushie makers.   
  
The entire time, Eren was agonizing over how much wiping up and reorganizing he would have to do. By the sound of it, someone had missed their cup entirely and a steady stream of cherry-flavored ice began to coat the metal bar. Someone quickly cursed before snapping out in a whisper, “ _Turn it off, jackass!_ ” There was some laughter, and Eren wondered how bad they would have freaked out if he had allowed himself to get a _little_ vampiric and appear behind them in half a second. Probably pretty bad, and there were at least two security cameras nearby. His boss was lenient with him, but not _that_ lenient. With that, he left them to mess with the slushie makers a little longer.  
  
Finally, the mass made their way to the counter. Half of the group paid in change, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the boy that had left the cherry ice tap open hadn’t paid in _nickels_. Eren just sighed and counted through them, silently willing all of them to never come in after midnight again.  
  
They began to leave, but not before a girl near the back of the group paused, and the group paused with her, not even bothering to turn around. The girl was dressed in an oversized pale blue sweater and jeans, and wearing a varsity jacket belonging to someone named Brandon. Overall, she didn’t seem too different from her friends in appearance. However, she automatically exuded that weird vibe that Eren was unfortunately used to.  
  
“Sorry about them,” the girl said with a sheepish grin. “It’s hard to control their minds all at once, y’know?” She laughed, adjusted the jacket on her shoulders, and went out the door with another word.   
  
Eren watched them walk down the street, blinked twice, once more to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated, and then made his way over to the slushie makers.   
  
So yeah, weird.  
  
But _definitely_ not as weird as Annie Leonhart coming in.   
  
The slushie makers and surrounding areas had been cleaned, all the out of place stuff rearranged accordingly, the floor given a quick mopping with filthy water that Eren guessed didn’t help much, and a fresh (ish) box of potato chips opened and ready for restocking. Eren was glancing at the expiration date on a bag of Doritos when the doors opened.  
  
He peered up above the display to see, and nearly gasped right out loud at the sight of her. Naturally, she didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She could have been at the Smithsonian rather than a corner store and her expression wouldn’t have changed much.   
  
“Uh,” he started off elegantly, putting the Doritos away. “Hey there.”  
  
Annie nodded to him briefly before making her way down the first aisle.   
  
There were a few reasons why Eren was so surprised to see her. For one thing, she was one of the three witches in the Rose Hollow Coven, a tiny group that met in the appropriately small back room of the town’s library. She and Mikasa were as close to friends as people like them could get. That being said, neither of them talked very much, and yet somehow Mikasa still considered her a very good friend.   
  
Annie was a _very_ talented witch at that, much like the other two in their group. As far as Eren knew about her (and that was like, nothing), she had been practicing witchcraft since childhood. She had two live-in familiars that were incredibly attached to her and had people coming in from all over the county for her spells, charms, and potions. There was a lot to be impressed by, as well as completely terrified, which Eren was.   
  
Another thing was that Annie really had _no_ reason to be at the corner store. The three resident witches exchanged ingredients like they were running some kind of secret market. Eren could hardly keep track of all the weird herbs, powders, fluids, and oddly-shaped objects that were in his kitchen at any given time. They would be gone within the day with no hint as to who they were going to. With that in mind, unless Annie had some kind of late night craving or something, there really was no explanation.  
  
Eren temporarily left the box of chips to go to the counter, half dreading and half anticipating what she was there for. Of course, she made no hints, just sort of drifting from aisle to aisle until she looped back to where the tiny display of semi-potent pharmaceuticals were. After standing there for an uncomfortably long time, she finally picked up a palm-sized tube and brought it to the counter. Eren quirked an eyebrow at the sight of it; Dramamine for motion sickness, complete with a little cartoon of a green-faced kid poking his head out of a car window.  
  
“For Bertholdt,” she said in a monotone voice by way of explanation. “I have to make a delivery tomorrow and he’s going with me.”  
  
Fine enough, Eren guessed, but he had no idea why she couldn’t have just grabbed some in the late morning, rather than at a terrible early morning hour. Apparently, she picked up on his doubt because she shifted her weight from her right foot to her left. Annie Leonhart _never_ made unnecessary moves. Either out of fear or out of expectation, Eren stayed silent. He scanned the tube of Dramamine and bagged it before handing it to her.  
  
Annie held the bag for a long moment, her eyes going from it to the bulletin board, and then back.  
  
 _Oh no, don’t say it,_ was Eren’s instant thought.   
  
“Can I... ask you something?” she started, and Eren felt like someone had dropped an ice cube down his back. Then again, with how good of a witch Annie was, he wouldn’t have doubted that it actually happened, or it was just a spell to get his attention.  
  
“Uh, yeah, I guess so?”  
  
She glanced over at the bulletin board and sighed through her nose. “Would it be stupid if I went to that dance thing?”  
  
He frowned and looked over at the board as well. “No? I mean, it’s an all ages thing, and there’s grandparents that come in and say they’re going. I’m sure there’s single people going, too.”  
  
At that, Eren felt a lightning-bright shock dance through every vein in his body, promptly causing him to stand up straight. _That_ was definitely a spell, and Annie’s too-even frigid stare made him hyper aware of that.   
  
“I wasn’t suggesting I’d be going alone,” she said in a painfully even tone.  
  
“S-sorry,” he managed, trying to shake off what ever she had done to him. It started to fade into the ridiculously annoying sensation of a previously asleep limb finally waking up. Pins, needles, and static. Terrible.  
  
“I was _going_ to ask,” she started again, but then faded a little. It was a minute thing, but Eren saw a miniscule shift in her posture, favoring drooping.   
  
It was a risk but, “...Yeah?” he asked, bracing himself for another spell of some kind.   
  
She sighed through her nose again and pushed a lock of hair behind one ear. “Is... Is your sister going?”  
  
A beat.  
  
Another beat.  
  
Annie was looking right at him and asking if his sister, _Mikasa_ , Annie’s friend and coven buddy and most definitely yes, _that_ Mikasa was going to the Halloween dance. Eren thought about pinching himself, but vampires weren’t very good at dreaming in the first place, and his legs probably would have given out from the spell wearing off anyway. Instead, he supported himself on the counter with one hand, exhaled, and tried to speak. That proved a little difficult at first, and the initial answer was, “ _Aaahhh..._ ”  
  
She just rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers once, and it felt like someone had pulled a knot loose inside Eren’s head.  
  
“I don’t know if she’s going and if she is, she doesn’t have a date,” he said instantly, like someone opened a drain in his mouth.  
  
 _Truth spells. Jerk move,_ he thought with a frown, but Annie looked honestly satisfied.  
  
“Hm,” she replied thoughtfully, twisting the plastic handle of the bag around her hand twice and unwinding it. “Okay.”  
  
“Okay?” he repeated, a little frazzled from having the truth yanked out of him because a witch didn’t have much patience.  
  
“Yeah. Okay,” she returned.   
  
“Are you gonna...?”  
  
She stopped twisting the bag and Eren _thought_ (the most operative word ever) he saw a tiny grin on her face. “Maybe,” was all she said. Then, she promptly turned away and walked out the doors.  
  
Annie Leonhart, super witch extraordinaire, was going to ask his sister out, and that was weirder than a teenager with mind control. And Eren was oddly happy for them. There was a little blip in the back of his mind, maybe something left over from the truth spell, or maybe something he had been thinking all along. _About time._  
  
He shook off the pins and needles in his legs as best he could, grimaced when they didn’t quite go away, and went back to restocking chips.


End file.
